Creativity in startups comes from people and process

At Forward Partners we have been thinking a lot recently about the qualities that we like to see in our people – our values if you like. One of those is to be “creative, adventurous and open-minded” and as we flesh out what that means we’ve been musing on how creativity works within our portfolio companies. We back great entrepreneurs with great ideas, so we’re not focused on the original eureka moment, but rather the way they find creative solutions to challenges as they arrive.

In western society we have this myth that creativity comes from lone geniuses, but in reality it’s hard being creative on your own. Some people are better than others, but most clever ideas these days come at the nexus of existing concepts and the genius is in bringing them together rather than dreaming up something out of nothing.

When creative solutions are required to solve day to day problems that arrive in startups (do I know what my customers want?, where can I find my first 50 customers?, why aren’t my leads converting?, what should my brand be? etc.) the best solutions come when the following elements are present: